urban gardening

Review of my Garden Journal for a Tiny Balcony Garden

Art, eindhoven, product development, Sustainable design

This year I’m excited to be using the journal I designed for recording and planning my own tiny balcony garden, so I thought I’d review how well it works and share my thinking for further product development. I had a display copy sitting around so I thought I might as well put it to use. They’re almost all sold out ( one left in the shop, along with a couple of the plastic-free kits) and I’ve had great feed-back so far. Time to see if there’s room for improvement before I order another small batch! Sit tight for a glimpse of my actual gardening attempts for this year too, for a space approximately 2x3m.

Pocket garden journal with a vintage feel
My little journal, I’m so proud of the design!

I find the format very handy, it would slip nicely in a small bag if you have an allotment or need to carry it if you have a large gardening space, for example. I don’t have to carry mine far though, and I enjoy it sitting pretty on my desk.

Very tentative plans on the ‘sowing’ timeline!

I’m happy that a lot of the pages are versatile and adaptable to your own way of gardening. This timeline could be a blooming timetable, sowing schedule, or ‘to do’ list for example. The paper is smooth and thick, and I was able to erase my graphite notes when I changed my mind after trying to crowd too much in to April!

I would love to make a hardback book with replaceable pages, perhaps a clip-in folder style so you could use it year after year, but it wasn’t financially viable and also this version is more portable. If you only have a small space, as lots of Urban Gardeners do, this smaller style fits better. A small collection will still be slimline and showcase your efforts over the years.

A quick flip-through of the journal

I’ll put photos in when things start growing, but it’ll make a cute little photo album. There’s a rough seasonal progression to the images and colours from front to back, Spring to Winter, which I’m very happy I went with.

My ambitious plans for fruit and veg (a lot of which I have already) for this year

This page above I particularly love, and realise it would be handy to include more of, for example for a planting schedule for each season. At the moment this single copy is very handy.

If anyone has any suggestions for version two, I’d love to hear them, whether you have a copy or just have an idea. I would love suggestions on products to add to my plastic-free gardening range as well, as gardening is such a big passion of mine and I love it when people buy these as gifts for other gardeners. I’m hoping I’m bringing a bit more fun and satisfaction to any garden-lovers. I’m happy I’m managing to keep it locally printed, sustainable and lovingly designed and packaged too.

This journal started as a way for me to still live out my gardening passion, one story up and in the middle of a city. I hope I can encourage people others to keep at it and make the most of any space they’ve got even if it’s just a windowsill.

Here are a couple of snap shots of my balcony right now, with most things still dormant but a few signs of Spring.

I can’t wait for it all to wake up, and I hope to share my gardening (and illustration progress with you later in the season!

Laura

Home linocut: Part 1

Art, illustration

This is my first linocut in 10 years. The last one I made was at university, in a lovely print studio with a beautiful big press. I recently got into stamp carving, and thought I’d try to up my game a bit with some lino and a small handmade press I made myself (really a glorified flower press). Using a strawberry plant on my balcony as inspiration, I cut a small block to test the best setup.

Linocutting on a homemade bench block
Ink trials

I vaguely remembered lino cutting being painful, and needing to keep plasters close at hand. So I built myself a bench block, which helped a lot and actually (for the record) I DIDN’T CUT MYSELF ONCE. What.

Then I had so many variations on materials that I wanted to experiment with. I ended up dabbling around with two basic black inks: Akua Intaglio and Daler Rowney Water-Soluble block printing colour. I found barely any visible difference between the resulting prints, but preferred the more velvety texture of the Akua ink whilst working with it. Both are water-soluble and make for a quick and tidy clean-up, with no harsh chemicals that oil-based inks need.

Top to bottom, l to r- 1-6 with baren, 7-11 with press
My home-made flower press.

I did the whole session on a big glass plate, occasionally putting the press on the floor to kneel on it so I could tighten the wing nuts, which worked a treat. Definitely an improvement on the low-pressure ”baren” technique. You can see from the photos that I still had issues with the paper creasing around the corners of the block, which I attribute to uneven application of pressure (I pressed too hard at the corners). I think this was worse on the Fabriano paper. I’d definitely go straight to the 100% cotton rag again; the 50% cotton Fabriano paper just gave more problems overall. It just didn’t seem to pick up the ink as well, though I did like the starker contrast between the white paper and black ink. The price difference between the two papers is worth it.

I then wanted to add colour, and kept it simple with green watercolour and red Prismacolor pencil (the red watercolour wasn’t as vibrant as I wanted). Both worked well with the ink and paper.

Original inspiration sketch on the left
Finished lino prints

 

I’m pretty happy with the results. Of course there’s a long way to go until I’ve nailed a reliable setup and printing process, but I’m already happy enough to have given a couple of these away as gifts. It’s so satisfying to be able to pull multiple originals on my dining table, and I’ll definitely try it again. Small ‘snapshots’ of my balcony garden are something I’ve been wanting to capture for a long time, so I think I’ll be making a series. I’ll update with my progress next time!